Because it launched only a couple years in the past, Axtra3D’s Hello-Pace SLA has supplied producers a extra environment friendly technique for producing molds and mildew inserts, amongst different purposes. The corporate’s HPS expertise, delivered to market within the Lumia X1 platform, is a hybrid photopolymerization expertise that mixes an SLA laser with a DLP projector for high-throughput and high-resolution printing. In mildew making, these capabilities—together with a broad materials compatibility—have been important to producing ceramic mildew inserts, low-pressure molds, high-temperature micro molds and thermoforming molds with a excessive diploma of accuracy, pace and price effectivity.
However the actual innovation lies within the Axtra3D trifecta: a convergence of breakthrough expertise, versatile enterprise fashions, and an expansive materials ecosystem.
Silicone AM emerges
Even these with restricted data of silicone 3D printing know that it’s a cutting-edge functionality that for years was restricted by the fabric’s viscosity and thermosetting properties. Solely now are we seeing commercially and industrially viable options for 3D printing the rubber-like materials with merchandise like Axtra3D’s TrueSilX50 coming to market.
TrueSilX50 was developed particularly for the Lumia X1 and has the identical properties as molded silicone, together with biocompatibility, flexibility and sturdiness. In additional particular phrases, the brand new 3D printing materials has the next properties:
- Shore Durometer of 48A
- Elongation at Break of 330%
- Tear Energy of twenty-two N/mm
- Rebound Resilience: 55%
“TrueSilX50 is our first true silicone materials, that includes a 48 Shore hardness, solely developed for our Lumia X1 printer,” explains Rajeev Kulkarni, Chief Technique Officer of Axtra3D. “It maintains the composition and properties of true silicone, providing unmatched sturdiness, flexibility and biocompatibility, making it invaluable for each healthcare and industrial purposes. TrueSilX50 delivers these advantages with the added benefit of digital manufacturing, considerably lowering time and price.”
Maximizing the advantages of silicone 3DP
The benefits of with the ability to 3D print relatively than mildew silicone elements are clear. For one, producers can create designs and geometries not potential with molded silicone. Straight 3D printing silicone additionally minimizes materials waste and accelerates turnaround instances by eliminating the tooling step completely.
Axtra3D emphasizes that its new materials additionally provides a number of advantages in comparison with different silicone 3D printing strategies, extrusion processes specifically. With HPS and TrueSilX50, customers can create merchandise with a superior floor end, free from any layer artifacts, in addition to obtain ultra-fine resolutions and complicated geometries with micron-level accuracy. Usually difficult design options for extrusion 3D printing, like flat surfaces and sharp edges, may also be printed with ease utilizing the HPS photopolymerization course of, which cures elements uniformly and ensures isotropic properties and clean finishes with out intensive post-processing.
Spectrum of purposes
The aforementioned capabilities open up purposes for silicone 3D printing in quite a lot of segments. Within the medical trade (together with dental and audiology), for instance, the expertise can quickly produce personalized anatomical fashions, wearable medical gadgets, custom-fit listening to aids, dental gadgets and extra.
Within the industrial sector, Axtra3D’s new silicone 3D printing materials can be utilized to fabricate seals and gaskets, smooth robotics, meals processing elements, keypads, waterproof enclosures and rather more. There are additionally alternatives within the shopper phase for the manufacturing of beauty applicators, headphones, child care merchandise and family home equipment, to call however a number of.
It’s price mentioning that utilizing TrueSilX50 on the Lumia X1 is as simple as 3D printing extra normal resins and Axtra3D has finalized print profiles for the fabric, which allow simple integration into current workflows in addition to scalability and repeatability.
Notably, the launch of TrueSilX50 is only the start for Axtra3D in terms of silicone 3D printing. Kulkarni elaborates on the corporate’s imaginative and prescient for silicone 3D printing, saying that extra varieties are within the pipeline. “We plan to develop our portfolio with extra silicone supplies, focusing on a variety of durometers for numerous purposes,” he says. “It provides a robust worth proposition by lowering prices, accelerating iterations and shortening the time to ultimate half in comparison with conventional strategies, whereas additionally delivering superior precision, element, decision and floor high quality over extruded silicone.”
Finally, by combining the advantages of HPS expertise (which has 2 to twenty instances quicker print speeds in comparison with conventional DLP, LCD and SLA platforms) with the distinctive properties of silicone, Axtra3D is opening up a world of prospects for versatile elements, biocompatible gadgets and past.
A Materials Ecosystem That Scales With You
Along with silicone, the Lumia X1 is suitable with all kinds of various supplies developed in collaboration with main resin producers, from high-temperature resins and ceramic-filled resins to micro-detail resins and elastomers. Axtra3D additionally provides two enterprise mannequin pathways to fulfill the wants of various prospects: AxtraSolutions, a turnkey answer that gives validated workflows and efficiency, and Axtra OpenAccess, which supplies customers full management over parameters, best for experimenting with third-party supplies.
